


Awesome Mix Vol. 2, Bonus Tracks

by TheoMiller



Series: families who murder together, stay together [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Beginnings, Everyone Has Issues, Feelings, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Gen, Major Character Undeath, Near Death, Other, Parent Yondu Udonta, Redemption, Slow Burn Gamora/Peter Quill, So Many Redemption Arcs, Team as Family, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 15:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10994007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoMiller/pseuds/TheoMiller
Summary: In which grudges are still held, but resolution is on the distant horizon. Also, it's amazing how fast gossip travels when you're stranded on a ship in the wreckage of a planet you just murdered.





	Awesome Mix Vol. 2, Bonus Tracks

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't contain as much Mantis as I'd like, but she doesn't have as many issues to resolve yet. (Stick around, babe. You'll acquire some issues.)
> 
> Alternate title: the slapfight that saves Yondu's life. SHARE THE SUIT, IDIOTS.

Peter peeled the suit emitter off his chest with some difficulty - had Yondu seriously modified it to be harder to remove? - and stuck it to Yondu's jacket.

"You take it back right now!" Yondu snapped.

Peter shook his head. The longer he held this breath, the more chance Kraglin and the others had to save them both. He just had to hold on.

Yondu managed to wriggle around without losing his grip on Quill entirely and transferred it back. "You have to live!" Yondu said.

"Stop wasting oxygen," said Peter, and Yondu grabbed his wrist before he could remove it again. "Let me go."

Yondu tightened his grip.

"If you think I'm going to sit here and watch you die---" Peter began, and broke off. The concept was terrible to contemplate. Besides, he was running out of time. Peter tightened his other hand on Yondu's jacket. "I'm not watching another parent die. Not again."

He twisted free of Yondu's hand and took a last gulp of oxygen before he tore the emitter off and stuck it to Yondu. Then, with some difficulty, he wrenched away entirely, and Yondu's eyes widened when he realized Peter had temporarily disabled the flight suit. He'd be able to bypass it, but not before it was too late to do anything stupid. He'd be dead already. Ain't no use putting an suit on a dead man.

Yondu shouted at him as he drifted away from the force of that last shove away from him, but there was no friction in space. No way to move. An awful expression crossed his face as he looked at Peter, probably the realization that there was nothing he could do – Peter knew that helplessness from those antiseptic-smelling hospital rooms.

But that was exactly why he had to leave Yondu like that. He'd found his dad. He wasn't going to lose him now.

He ran a mental check over the others. Gamora and Nebula must have made it out, they were too powerful for anything else. Rocket had Groot, they would be fine. Drax wouldn't have left Mantis. Kraglin - so strange, to rely on Kraglin again - he had strong survival instincts. He'd take care of Yondu. Peter smiled. His whole family was together. Even Gamora's slightly evil sister and his dad's best friend and the new girl. It was a big family. Very big and very strange and very much a little bit of both good and bad.

Right before he passed out, he was pretty sure Yondu said something sentimental, but it was hard to be sure.

What the hell. He was dying anyway. "You too, dad," he said. Or maybe just thought. He hoped he'd said it, that Yondu had heard it.

And then he was waking up to being shaken gently. He opened his eyes and realized first he could breathe, and second that Yondu couldn't.

"No," Peter gasped. Yondu held him close. Frost was creeping up across his skin already.

And then a familiar ship loomed behind them.

-

"You two done tryna die for each other, or should we throw you back out the airlock?" Rocket asked.

Yondu's response was to roll over and heave his stomach contents onto the floor of the cargo bay.

"I'm not cleaning that up," said Rocket. "Might wanna boost your recompression system, they shouldn't be this out of sorts."

"My chambers're fine. Not everyone has modified audiovestibular systems what can handle it so well as you," Kraglin shot back.

Yondu and Peter both expended the necessary effort to join the rest of the crew in staring at him.

"Nobody knows what you're talking about," Drax informed him.

"It's true," Nebula said. "Rocket does have intracranial implants that regulate his inner ear. His capacity for balance is significantly higher than most unaugmented vertebrates, even of superior species."

"Watch who you're calling superior," muttered Rocket.

Peter tried to stand up, and slipped. "Dammit," he said.

Gamora crouched down beside him and rested her hand on his shoulder blade. "Peter, don't push yourself. That was a close call."

Yondu managed to flop down as far from the pool of vomit as he could. "I'd kill for some swill right about now," he said. "My whole everything hurts." With that revelation, the Ravager closed his eyes and promptly passed out.

"I am Groot," said Groot.

Rocket patted him. "Yeah, buddy. They'll be fine. Probably. Lungs might collapse still, but otherwise they're fine."

Nebula sighed. "Administer oxygen and don't let them move around that much, you pulled them out of the recompression chamber too quickly. Leave it to you idiots to kill two of your own with bad medical care."

"There oxygen on this junker?" Rocket asked Kraglin.

"Don't call it a junker," Kraglin said. Then, "Shit. Yeah, might know where some is. C'mon."

Gamora picked up Quill like he weighed nothing – he groaned, tilted his head into her shoulder, and mumbled something about how he was never living this down – and looked at Nebula. "Can you get Yondu?"

Drax was bigger than both of them and could've easily carried Yondu, but he didn't offer his help and Nebula scowled but didn't object.

"I found some rooms which are fit for sleeping," Mantis piped up.

"Drax," said Gamora, "get us the hell away from this place."

"Small problem with that," said Kraglin.

Which was how they found out the ship's engines were shot, and they were stuck out here for a week, maybe two.

Swearing was involved.

-

Drax waited for Nebula and Gamora to be done talking. He hadn’t been able to eavesdrop, but he’d gathered that Nebula was leaving. _And good riddance_.

He followed her back to the dark corner she’d claimed for herself.

"Where will you go?" asked Drax.

Nebula sneered at him. "What business is it of yours, meathead?"

"If you plan to go and destroy planets, it is our business. We will have to stop you."

"As if you could." Then, "I'm going to kill Thanos… idiot."

"That is a noble task," Drax said. "I set my sights on the same goal, after I realized that Ronan was merely a pawn. However, I thought I would travel with the Guardians before seeking him out. Now I have Mantis. She is much too weak to leave with these idiots. And they need me."

"If you change your mind, I will need cannon fodder."

-

"Quill, stop grabbing at that mask or I'm gonna seal it to your face," Rocket said. "The blue lady said you need oxygen. Yer getting oxygen, conscious or unconscious. Got it?"

"Why isn't Yondu awake?" Peter asked. His voice was muffled by the mask, but Rocket didn't seem to have trouble hearing him. Made sense; he spent a lot of time translating for a guy who only knew three words, and only in one order.

"Because he ain't half a god, Quill. Lay still. I got way better uses for pure pressurized oxygen, if you wanna test me."

"I am Grooooooot," said Groot.

"What he said," Rocket said grimly.

He seemed satisfied that Peter was done trying to get out bed. He resumed fidgeting with something in the machine that was pumping oxygen to both him and Yondu, who laid still and quiet in the next bed. Peter stared up at the ceiling and pretended the light was the reason for the prickling in his eyes. He blinked hard. "Where's Gamora?"

"Went off to talk to Nebula. You're stuck with me."

To his humiliation, the tears began to splash over his cheeks. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists.

"Oh geez," said Rocket. "Uhhh. Quill? Buddy?"

"Can we just call this a rare form of oxygen toxicity and pretend you didn't see this?"

"Well, I can't lie about what it was if I didn't see it happen..."

" _Rocket_."

Rocket sighed, and said something quiet that Peter couldn't hear with his stuffy nose. He tried to focus on just breathing so he'd stop friggin' crying like a child, and then there was a weight on the edge of the bed. Peter opened one watering eye to see Rocket perched there, looking deeply uncomfortable.

"I sent Groot to go play video games," Rocket said. "You, uh. You wanna talk about it?"

"You don't want to hear about my dumb emotions."

"I'm trying a new thing. C'mon, let me hear it, promise I'll even minimize the amount of laughing."

"You could try not laughing at all."

Rocket scoffed. "Yeah, _that_ ain't happening. Come on, out with it, I don't have all day."

Peter frowned up at him. "Are you trying to bully me into talking to you about my feelings?"

"Look, I'm deeply dysfunctional, but I'm a lab experiment, so, ya know. You gonna talk or not?"

"It's about Yondu."

"Uh-huh," said Rocket. Peter appreciated that he didn't actually say the 'well, duh' his tone implied.

"He came to help us, and then he tried to die for me. And he said he was my dad and I think he's right."

"I'm with you so far."

"But I'm really mad at him."

"...uh huh," Rocket said, in an inscrutable tone.

"He abducted me, man. And he was always threatening to eat me. And he didn't protect me from the other Ravagers all the time and even when I was all beat to hell cos Horuz can't take a joke, he'd yell at me and threaten me with his arrow all the time. He beat the crap outta me, too! Said he was teaching me to fight, he bruised three ribs, and then he made me go out on a job to steal stuff the next day. He put a bounty on me!"

"That's some heavy shit," Rocket said in a small voice. "So you don't want him to be your dad?"

"What? No. I - he didn't take me to the park to play catch, but he took me planetside to learn how to shoot. He got someone to teach me to fix my Walkman. When I had nightmares about my mom dyin' he'd take me to the viewport to watch the stars and told me bout his old crew days til I fell asleep, and then he'd carry me back to my bunk. I'd pretend to be asleep so I didn't have to walk back. And this one time, I got hurt bad on a job and the next day the guy who'd attacked me and all his cronies were dead. Yondu stole everything that wasn't bolted down, and brought me back my Walkman, cos they got it too."

"So he's not a bad dad. He's a good dad?"

"He used me as bait for some seriously ugly creatures. But he never let them get me. But they _almost_ did."

"Quill, man, did you suffer brain damage out there in the aether?"

Peter drew a breath. "I'm saying... maybe he's a mix of a good dad and a bad dad. Maybe it's like with people. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, you just gotta find people bad enough not to be annoying, but not so bad you hate em."

"And Yondu is... Not so bad you hate him?"

"I think so."

"That seems easy. Glad you worked that out. I'll just - "

"But I'm really mad at him," Peter whispered to the ceiling.

Rocket stilled. "All right. I'll bite. Why?"

Peter's face crumpled. "He tried to die for me," he said.

"Course he did. The alternative was you dyin', and he wasn't about to let that happen."

"He shouldn't have done that! If he'd died, I'd have - I'd have been alone again."

Peter felt awful for saying it, because he patently wasn't alone. He had his team, after all.

"You're telling me that you can forgive him for raising you on a pirate ship, after abducting you from your home, and threatening you and beating you up constantly, putting a bounty on your head, trying to kill you, but it's him doing something NICE that pissed you off?" Rocket's voice had risen steadily in pitch and volume til he was yelling so loud Peter expected Yondu to wake up.

"Yeah," said Peter.

"Quill... You got issues."

"I was abducted by alien pirates, what's your excuse?"

Rocket socked him on the leg for that. "He ain't gonna be sorry for that. But I think he's already sorry for the rest of it. I think... I think he wasn't sure how to have a family, so he just made it up as he went along. And that went pretty bad. Maybe it scared him to have people to care about. Maybe he was so bad to keep you at arm's length so if he lost you it wouldn't be so bad, and he spent the whole time waiting for you to push him away and prove him right about the world. But you didn't. Cause no matter how many times he beat you up or insulted you or stole batteries he didn't need... He's family. So you forgave him."

It took Peter a minute to process all of that, since he had to rewind and figure out how much of that still applied to Yondu.

...actually, Yondu might have even stolen batteries unnecessarily that one time back on Galetto, when the Horde was already there and they wound up being chased around a star system for a while. Huh.

"Yeah, Rocket," he said. "Of course I forgave him. He's family. And... I love him."

He took a risk and reached out to stroke behind Rocket's ear, and pretended not to feel him shaking.

For some stupid ass reason, Peter was crying again. But Rocket was sniffling too, so it was a little less humiliating.

"On Earth we got this concept of Mutually Assured Destruction - " he began.

"Way ahead of ya," Rocket said.

"Cool."

-

Peter managed to avoid Kraglin for a while. The ship wasn’t terribly large, but once he’d been released from the makeshift med-bay, and Kraglin had taken up the bedside vigil for Yondu, and Peter had tried to bury himself in the slow process of getting the ship back online.

But he couldn’t avoid him forever, not when he was still anxious about Yondu’s health.

“How is he?” He asked.

Kraglin, who’d been toying with a puzzle box from Yondu’s knickknack collection, startled. He barely managed to catch the puzzle before it hit the ground. “Uh. Breathin’. Nebula’s been keepin’ him under so he ain’t moving round while his tissues reform.”

“We’re letting Nebula control the dosages?” He said.

“She’s got it in her databanks,” Kraglin explained, tapping his head. “Ain’t like any of the rest of us can do the numbers and whatnot.”

That made sense, but Rocket had filled him in on the _shooting Yondu_ _’s implant_ thing, so he was still nursing a bit of a grudge here. If Gamora hadn’t vouched for her, he might’ve given her a suit and left her to float out in the aether.

“Well,” said Peter, “lemme know if something changes.”

He heard Kraglin follow him out into the hall and ignored it until he said, “Peter! Pete—uh, Star-lord!”

“What?”

The Ravager took this as a cue to approach him. He fished in his pockets and held something out.

"He got this for you," said Kraglin. "In case you came back.”

Peter took the device from Kraglin without addressing that, or the sharp edge to Kraglin’s voice. No doubt Kraglin hadn’t taken too kindly to Peter deserting, or thoughts of him coming back after the orb incident.

And he definitely wasn’t going to examine how he felt about Yondu’s apparent expectation that Peter would come back.

Much safer to just look at the little gadget. “What is it?” He asked, when the gray plastic and circular buttons failed to yield an explanation.

“It plays music,” said Kraglin. “Yer music, and anything else you wanna load onto it. None of those tapes, neither. S'what all the humans are using these days. Can hold up to 300 songs."

Peter cradled the thing - ZUNE, it said on the plastic shell - in reverent hands. "300?!"

"Yeah," Kraglin said. He shoved his hands in his pockets when Peter turned his incredulous delight on him, and shrugged. “Guess he knew you’d run into some sort of trouble your little box couldn’t make it through.”

Peter turned it on; there weren't 300 songs on it yet, but half of them... "Wait a second, some of these were on my second cassette. I didn't open them until." Until after he double crossed the Ravagers a second time. "How did you - ?"

Kraglin scratched the back of his mohawk nervously. "I, uh. Well, the cap'n was curious bout that box you refused to open, so he had me scan it. Weren't hard to copy the data over. Way easier than tryna fix your first little doodad."

Peter's thumb hovers over Cat Stevens's “Father And Son”.

"Thanks, Kraglin."

He started to leave again, but was once more interrupted by Kraglin’s hesitant voice. "Peter... do you think he's gonna kill me, when he wakes up?"

"No one's killing anyone on my ship," Peter said automatically. Then he softened. "No, Krags, I don't think he'll kill you. He hasn't killed me yet, remember?"

"Yeah, but I ain't you."

“Exactly,” said Peter.

Kraglin rubbed his hands together. “He ain’t so fond of me as he is of you, even before… the mutiny.”

He studied Kraglin’s face. He looked exhausted, miserable, with a new distance in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. If it were just Yondu and Kraglin left of the crew, then a whole lot of people were dead. People who’d been crew for years, decades even. And it was at least partly Kraglin’s fault.

“You’re the only crew he has left. You might have to spend a few years on the opposite side of the galaxy, but I don’t think he’ll hunt you down and kill you. Other than that, I can’t make promises.”

“What if I want more than that?”

“More… murder?”

“More than just not bein’ killed. Back to how we was.”

Peter stared at him.

“Never mind,” Kraglin said hastily.

“You should ask Rocket,” said Peter. “He was there. I wasn’t. And you should get back.”

 _If he dies on your watch_ , he didn’t say, because he didn’t quite know how to finish up the threat.

-

Kraglin found Rocket deep in the belly of the ship, tinkering. “You were there for the whole… thing.”

“The mutiny you incited?”

He winced. Normally he’d pull a knife over that kind of casual back-talk, but he deserved it in this case. “That’d be the one.”

“What about it?”

“How do I get back to normal? With Yondu, I mean.”

“Normal?” Rocket scoffed, plucking at a wire. “Hate to tell you, Obfonteri, but _normal_ went out the airlock with your friends. Hand me that fuser.”

“So there’s no way to get back to the way things was?” He found the tool Rocket had indicated and passed it along, then chewed on his lip while Rocket connected two cords that were definitely never supposed to be connected.

The ship _hummed_.

“Tell you something ‘bout getting things back the way they were,” said Rocket. “They usually weren’t all that great before.”

Kraglin groaned. The raccoon was useless. He thunked his head against the wiring. “He’s gonna murder me.”

“Probably,” said Rocket.

“Fat load of help you are.”

“Hey, I found a way to contain the arrow, you have at least until he’s able to get out of bed on his own. I did my part. Now get out of here, this might get a mite… explode-y.”

Kraglin did not need to be told twice.

-

Nebula’s voice managed to be both hostile and bored when she opened a comm link with Quill. “Sedatives are wearing off.”

“He’s waking up?”

“That’s what I said.”

Peter flat-out sprinted down to the makeshift infirmary.

Nebula was already gone by the time he got there, and Kraglin hovered outside the door. “You, uh, you’re taking first crack, right?”

“I’ll tell him the rule about not murdering each other on my ship,” Peter told him, and then pushed past.

Yondu woke up in drips and drabs, and Peter spent an hour cleaning up vomit and keeping Yondu from thrashing his way right off the narrow cot.

Somehow, the inability to figure out how to feel about this reunion resulted in a numb, distant apathy. And then Yondu gasped and grabbed his arm roughly, his eyes searching Peter’s face.

“Quill,” he said. He let go and slumped back. “What happened? You killed Ego, right?”

“He’s dead,” Peter said.

“An’ yer friends?”

“We all made it. Nebula, Mantis, and Kraglin too.”

“Guessing your rodent pal told you ‘bout all that.”

“He thinks you’re going to kill him,” said Peter. “But Groot has voted against that. So if you do kill him… don’t do it on my ship, and you tell Groot he went to live on a farm with a bunch of other nice mutineers to play with.”

“I ain’t gonna kill him… I own him, least til he stops feelin’ guilty.”

The apathy was starting to give way to annoyance by way of exposure to Yondu’s particular brand of Pretending Not To Care. And anger wasn’t far behind.

 _“Yondu_.”

“Guessin’ you wanna talk about the sentiment.”

“Your crew mutinied over you caring about me. We’re officially past the point where we can ignore this, without you almost dying.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“How about you trying to die for me?”

"Wasn't always the dad you deserved," Yondu said. "But I'm sure glad you's my boy. An’ I wanted to prove it."

"You should've said something," Peter said.

Yondu huffed. "Would you have listened?"

"You still should've said it. Knowing I wouldn't listen to you hasn't stopped you from telling me things before, why now? Why this?"

"Sayin' it makes it real. And when it's real, it's dangerous."

"They wouldn't have mutinied over you calling me your son."

"No, they would've hurt you to get t'me."

"I could handle myself!"

"An' if they got the drop on you? If my ship, my rank, all my credits weren't enough to ransom you? I was s'posed to watch you die cos of my own damn sentiment?"

"Stop saying it like that," Peter growled. "Stop saying sentiment like it's a poison. Stop acting like giving a damn about me is such a friggin curse that - being my dad shouldn't be a burden."

"But being my son oughta be?"

"I wasn't your son, I was cargo. My whole life you told me that. I was cargo, I was a snack, I was a tool, I was just another crewman. You're the one who taught me that loving you, or anyone, was a personal failure."

"You left, you stole from me - twice - what do you want me to say? Sorry?" He sneered.

"YES!" Roared Quill. "Hey, Peter, sorry I abducted you. Sorry the only reason you're alive is cos I got qualms! Sorry I told you you meant nothing! Or you could say sorry for acting like I'm the bad guy.

“I stole the orb so I could go home. I reneged on the deal we made - which I _only_ made because you were about to kill me and sell Gamora back to her father - so you wouldn't accidentally destroy yourself and half the galaxy with you.

“I left ‘cause I was tired of feeling empty and then you want to act like I should've magically known you wanted to fill the giant empty void marked "family", when you spent half your time convincing me you didn't give a damn about me!"

Yondu stared at him.

Peter swallowed. He stood up straight and stepped away from the bed; he felt exhausted suddenly, like finally unloading on Yondu after 28 years had taken all 28 years of energy.

"My life was pretty messed up," Yondu said.

Peter didn't want to hear it, but Yondu struggled into a sitting position, and grabbed his arm tight.

"I ain't gonna excuse what I did to you, boy. I'm just sayin' I'm damaged. And I weren't man enough to keep my damage from damaging you. Tryin' hard ain't really my game. So I just hoped you was damaged enough to take any scrap of affection I tossed yer way and hold onto it, t'make up for the times I wasn't much of a daddy at all. Hoped ya'd hang onto the hope that I loved ya like I hunt onto the hope that I could ever be good enough for ya to.

“But you turned out better than me. And I can't claim that as my work. You turned out good enough to demand some respect from people without force and ya got it. I'm real proud of you for it. Even if it ain't my work."

Peter didn't even notice that the uneven blue nails had stopped digging into his arm, that he was free to leave. "Some if it was your work," he said softly. "Some of it was good."

"Tha’s good."

"You should lie back down," said Peter. "I have to check on my crew. You... You need to sleep."

"Peter," Yondu said. It might be one of the first times Yondu has ever called him that. "M'not sorry I abducted you."

"In a roundabout way, you saved the galaxy by picking me up."

"Twice," said Yondu.

 _What an a-hole_ , Peter thought, more fondly than he’d intended. "Twice."

He made it to the cockpit before he realized what he'd said.

"Picked me up," he muttered.

"Hmm?" Rocket asked.

Peter shook his head. "Said I need a pick me up. How close are you to getting the engines going? I want to find a bar or six."

-

"Nebula is leaving," Gamora said. "So you don't have to worry about her anymore, once we make it somewhere she can steal a ship."

"I'm not worried."

She leveled a disbelieving look at him, and Peter raised both hands.

"Honest," He said. She half believed him. "You said she was cool and I accepted that. I trust your judgement."

For some reason, the urge to kiss Quill had become an automatic response to nearly everything he said, but it was harder to suppress when he was smiling and saying something sweet.

She swore he could sense it, or maybe just read it on her face, because the silence stretched out tense, his ceaseless chatter stayed by the faint thread of what he'd called an Unspoken Thing.

"Speaking of wild cards," He added, when she dropped her gaze from his. "Yondu is awake."

She'd known that, but Peter liked to state the obvious sometimes. It seemed to help him think. Gamora wasn't sure if that was a Human thing or a Peter Quill thing.

"Rocket hasn't given him back the arrow yet, has he?"

"No, he's still unarmed. Pretty pissed about it, too."

"How did your talk with him go?"

He tugged on his sleeves. "He apologized, in his own way. Said he was proud of me."

"I'm glad."

"Would you - I mean, he's not a Ravager anymore. I've contacted Stakar about what happened, to try and reverse the banishment, but even if he does it, crew's dead. Eclector's destroyed."

Like she said. Stating the obvious.

"Okay," she prompted.

"I wanna offer him a place here. With us."

"Oh," Gamora considered this. "Well, it's up to you."

He shook his head. "No, I don't want to just make decisions like this without. Your input, at least. Drax doesn't get a say because he asked Mantis to stay without even checking with me. Groot and Rocket have already demanded to be allowed to keep Yondu - guess they bonded during their traumatic experience - so they're fine. And I... want your vote. Your _opinion_. You actually have full veto, so - "

"Peter. Do you want me to say no, so you don't have to?"

"No," he said.

"Then why do you need my permission?"

"Advice," he corrected.

She definitely did not want to be in charge. Being Peter's second suited her; she could make decisions when she needed to, but people weren't constantly looking to her for answers. The only answers she knew were fighting and running away.

But if he was asking for her opinion it would be better to take the opportunity to cede the power back to him. This would waste time. She could poke around this strange new insecurity of his later.

"You want him around?" She asked.

He hesitated. "Yeah," he said finally. "I want a chance to have a real relationship with him. As... as my dad, and not just a captain."

"He won't endanger us? Or, no more than the others do already?"

"If anything he might keep us a little safer. That arrow is pretty hard to argue with."

"And the vote to keep him around is already 3-to-1 before I weigh in."

"Veto power," he repeated.

She smiled faintly. "We follow your lead, Star-lord. You want him here, then he's here. What about Kraglin? Will he stay if Yondu does?"

"Before, I'd have said they were a package deal," said Peter. "Now..."

"Now they might be mutually exclusive. If they can't work together and they both want to stay, they can suck it up or you can send one away."

"Thanks, Gamora. I knew you were the best person to puzzle it out," he patted her smartly on the shoulder before heading towards the innards of the ship.

"I didn't do anything," she called after him. Why was he trying to make her seem like the one in charge?

 _Maybe he's leaving,_ some treacherous voice in the back of her mind said, _and he's preparing you to take over._

Just the thought of being alone, out here, with Rocket and Groot and now Mantis to look after, as well as reigning in Drax... It made her chest tighten and her stomach turn.

She went to find Nebula.

At least that headache was a familiar one.

-

Nebula was practicing her knife throwing. Gamora perched in a nook created by the curve of pipes around a bulkhead.

"So," she said casually, "any plans for how you're going to kill Thanos?"

The next knife slammed into the target - a piece of the wreckage from planet Ego, it looked like - just a hair away from the mark.

Gamora settled back into the alcove. "I spent my whole life watching for weaknesses. I don't remember seeing very many."

The next knife hit the right place, but at a bad angle.

"He still has an infinity stone."

Nebula spun and threw the knife at Gamora, who snatched it out of the air. "And you can't even listen to me talk about it without becoming too angry to hit a target properly."

"Is our truce over already?" Nebula asked.

"I don't want to lose you," said Gamora. "If you go rushing in to kill Thanos without a plan, and he kills you... I'll never have gotten the chance to be the sister you deserved."

"So I should stay here with your merry band of idiots while Thanos plots more destruction? No, thanks."

"At least until you have a plan. We could raise an army, find a weapon... or even just a plan, something that will let you pull it off, even if you do decide to go alone."

"Might not be alone," said Nebula.

Gamora blinked. She hadn't expected that. "Really?"

"The big dumb one wants to kill Thanos too. He's thinking about coming along."

"His name is Drax," she said automatically. Then it registered she'd called Drax big and dumb, and frowned.

Nebula smirked. "That's the one. No point in me learning his name. If he tries to fight alongside me, he'll get himself killed. He called Ronan to you on Knowhere. Might've even stood a chance, had Ronan not been given the warhammer. Strong, but not great at survival instinct. You really shouldn't let him come."

"I didn't know he was considering it," murmured Gamora.

Nebula scoffed at that. "For all your yelling, you idiots don't do much talking."

"Lots of fighting, too, with no real winners."

"You should talk to him," said Nebula, "before he does decide to do another stupid stunt like on Knowhere."

"Stupid stunts? You flew an M ship across the galaxy to kick my ass," said Gamora.

Nebula sneered without the usual level of antipathy. Gamora tried to ignore the fact that "slightly less outright hatred" gave her what Peter called warm fuzzies.

But not even sisterly bonding could distract her from the bile rising in her throat. Drax wanted to leave?

-

She found Drax sitting at the least-dirty porthole, watching the stars.

"Are you leaving us?"

He looked over his shoulder at her. "I told Nebula that the prospect was a tempting one. But I have Mantis to consider now. She is much too weak to leave behind, and I cannot bring her to kill Thanos."

"Why would you want to leave? Aren't you happy here with us? You seemed fine!"

"I do get to slash throats," he said, "which I find pleasing. But I have a duty to find and destroy the man who killed my family."

"What about this family?"

He looked at her. "You are a better family than I ever imagined I would find, after the death of my wife and daughter."

Gamora laid a hand on his arm. "Drax, you know we feel the sa—"

"Of course, I was expecting not to find any family," he continued. "And it is not difficult to be better than nothing."

She nodded. "Of course," she said flatly.

He didn't notice the acerbic tone to her voice, not that she expected him to. "I have made no decision yet regarding whether I will wait for Nebula's doomed revenge attempt to weaken Thanos, or if I will join her in the efforts."

"Don't decide anything without talking to Quill," she said. "Please. He deserves to hear this - whatever decision you make - from you."

"He is pathetic, but honorable. I would not leave without telling him my choice."

"Thank you."

"If I were to leave... Mantis would be left in your care."

"Mine?" She repeated.

"You are the strongest, besides me, and the deadliest. On my planet you would lead and not Quill."

"I don't _want_ to lead," she said.

He shrugged. "You aliens are very strange in your estimations of good leaders. But I would leave Mantis to your care."

"We'll look after her," said Gamora, "whether you go or not."

-

"Heard rumor that the big grey one is thinkin' bout leaving with the blue lady to go after Thanos," said Kraglin.

"Wouldn't mind seeing their backs," Yondu mused. "Rather it be out an airlock, least with the girlie.”

"With even a fraction of the bounty on Thanos I could buy you a brand new galleon, a thousand M ships, and even incentives or whatever for new crew."

"You crazy or stupid? It ain't worth a thousand galleons to go near Thanos."

"But I could fix what I done," said Kraglin. The 'or die trying' went unsaid.

"Whatchu want, Kraggers? Redemption? Fine, you're frigging redeemed. You're useless to me dead, and worse than useless constantly groveling tryna fix what's been done. Ain't the worst anyone's done, to me or anyone else. And wallowing in your misery ain't gonna bring back your friends. You live with your mistakes. You don't throw yourself headlong into death for 'em."

Kraglin chewed his lip but didn't argue further. His frown said he wasn't dropping the issue, though.

-

"Drax and Nebula are thinking about leaving to go after Thanos," said Gamora.

"Kraglin too," Rocket said. At her surprised look, he shrugged. "I mighta forgiven them two or whatever, but I didn't forget, and I'm not stupid. I bugged them both." He peered up at her. "You gonna tell me to cut it out?"

"Once either of them joins the Guardians, you'll have to stop that," she said. "But I guess it's all right if you bug them otherwise. Don't even try with Nebula."

"Already did. She threatened to feed it to me. I can see the familial resemblance."

Gamora apparently decided to ignore that. "So we might lose Drax, as well as Kraglin and Nebula. But you think Yondu will stay?"

"For Quill? Yeah."

"You... You aren't thinking of leaving, are you?"

Rocket huffed. "What, leave Groot behind and run off with those psychopaths? No thanks."

"Not necessarily with them," said Gamora. "I assumed we were all in this for the long haul, but it appears I was mistaken. If you want to leave - you would take Groot, I know - We wouldn't stop you."

He tried to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. "Do you want us to leave?" Do you want me to leave?

"Of course not!"

She _seemed_ genuine. Rocket frowned down at the mess of machinery in front of him, plucking at a loose bolt. "Don't want us to wear out our welcome, and all."

"Only way you're leaving this team is if you demand to," she said. "Otherwise you're stuck with us."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, Rocket."

He nodded briskly. "I'm staying. Groot too."

"Where is he, anyway?" Gamora's voice had gotten softer than plasma ooze.

"With Quill and his music."

He wasn't even able to rustle up any bitterness about Groot bonding with Quill.

-

Groot had fallen asleep curled around the crook of Peter's elbow where it was propped on the arm rest of the pilot's chair. When it became clear that he was going to lose his mind if he sat still much longer, he shifted the sleeping tree around to tuck him against his chest like a baby and stood up. Groot only stirred briefly. He swayed a little, in time with the music, and listened to Groot's breaths even out.

"Rocket says you have all of Big Groot's memories, but your brain isn't developed enough to process them yet. Or whatever you have in place of a brain. I hope he's right, and not just missing you. The old you.

“I didn't get to spend much time with you then, but I would've liked to. You saved us all. I watched you take out dozens of people trying to kill us, and then you turned around and sacrificed yourself for us... all that power and you were still good. I want to be like that. I wish you could teach me."

Footfall.

He rocked Groot gently and waited for Gamora to approach him at her own pace. She stepped up to stand beside him, and looked out the viewport with him.

“You’ve been acting differently,” she said. “I thought maybe you were planning to leave too, but that’s not it. You’re worried about what happened with Ego.”

He looked at her, and she mirrored him. “I should’ve listened to you when you said something was weird.”

“You wanted to think the best of your father,” she said. “Well, that explains why you keep asking for my opinion.”

Peter winced. “That makes it sound like I don’t usually ask your opinion,” he said.

“You don’t,” said Gamora.

He looked away. “Yeah.”

“But you know that if I disagree with you, I’ll make myself heard,” she said. “All you have to do is tell me what you’re thinking so I get a chance to voice my disagreement, and you do that already. Most of the time,” she added.

“I’ve been not-telling you something,” he said.

She gave him a _well, duh_ look. “I know.”

“Ego—he filled my head with the entire universe. It was like… like nothing else I’ve ever felt. Not even the Infinity Stone. I _wanted_ to do what he said. If he hadn’t slipped up, if he hadn’t admitted to killing my mom, I think I would’ve done it. I would’ve let him destroy the universe, might’ve helped him.”

 _I would_ _’ve killed billions and then balked only at the death of you, at killing Rocket and Groot and Yondu and the others. Just like Ronan would’ve killed everyone for the Kree_.

“Your first brush with real power,” she said. He saw her hands clench and unclench at her sides. “The… the first time Thanos let me leave, after he stole me and destroyed my home in front of me, he sent me to destroy a terraform colony at the edges of Nova space.”

Peter can almost see the Xandarians, their first few buildings on newly habitable earth, and Gamora - younger, too young to be used like that - being dropped to the surface. Maybe in their midst.

“I killed them all without any weapon but a sword.”

“How many—”

“I stopped counting,” she said. “Not that time. Years later, I learned to stop counting.”

He nodded. “You got out. You stopped.”

Gamora’s hand cupped his face and turned his head to her. “So did you,” she said. He caught her wrist and held her there.

Peter couldn’t be sure how long they stood like that, her fingers on his cheek, his around her wrist, Groot sleeping between their torsos, his slow breathing a counterpoint to theirs.

“I trust you,” she said softly.

“I trust you too.”

Her hand slipped away, and they resumed standing side-by-side, gazing out into the aether.

“Drax is thinking about leaving.”

The moment was officially ruined. Peter whirled to face her. “He’s _what_?”

“He and Nebula and Kraglin are all thinking about going off together, going to kill Thanos.”

“What do we do?”

“Besides chain them all to the pipes until they die of old age? We let them leave, and hope they don’t die in the process.”

He balled his free hand into a fist, and passed Groot off to her. “Call a team meeting,” he said. “I have a plan.”

“How much of a plan?”

“100%,” he said. Then, “Well, 100% of a plan to make another plan.”

“That sounds about right,” she agreed.

-

“It’s come to my attention that some of you idiots want to run off and fight Thanos on your own,” Quill growled.

“Dumbass,” said Yondu.

Drax glowered.

Rocket slapped Drax’s arm. “He means Kraglin.”

“If the shoe fits,” Yondu said.

“So what if we are?” Nebula asked Peter, her eyes narrowed dangerously.

“I’m not gonna let you.”

“She said we,” Mantis said.

Gamora glanced at her. “She did,” she agreed.

“Halle-friggin’-lujah, a miracle,” Rocket said, “Nebula has a concept of teamwork.”

“HEY! I’m talking up here!”

With a chorus of grumbles, they all turned to look at Quill, expressions a sliding scale from innocently expectant to mockingly expectant.

“There’s no way you can kill Thanos with one or two or even three people. He’s too powerful. And we’re not letting you run off on a suicide mission. But obviously, we can’t keep you guys from running off, short of Gamora’s suggestion that we handcuff you to a radiator.”

“What’s a radiator?” Asked Mantis.

“That is not what I suggested,” said Gamora. “And what _is_ a radiator?”

“Forget the radiator! You’re all missing the point.”

Rocket cocked his head. “Then what is the point, Quill?”

"We're a family," said Peter. "We kill people _together_."

Gamora looked at Nebula; she made a face. Rocket stroked the fur on his throat as he considered this. Yondu’s eyes narrowed, and Kraglin counted on his fingers. Mantis cocked her head. Drax’s face split into a wide grin.

Groot clamored off Rocket’s shoulder and climbed onto the table, where he stood to his full height. “I am Groot!”

“You can’t even fight yet,” Rocket groused, but he stood up on his chair.

Drax jumped to his feet. Mantis mimicked him automatically.

“What are they doing?” Nebula asked Gamora.

“Standing in a circle like a bunch of jackasses,” Gamora said.

Peter looked at her, biting his lip. “Still ready to die among friends?”

“Always,” she said.

Yondu started to stand, and Kraglin got up to help him to his feet, then looked embarrassed when this left him standing too. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “If ya want me,” he said.

“I want a ninth of the bounty,” said Yondu. “Also half of Kraglin’s ninth. And maybe a tax on—”

“One-ninth, and that’s it,” Peter told him. “Still enough to buy a planet and retire, old man. Don’t get greedy—what am I talking about, you’re a Ravager,” he shook his head and looked at Nebula.

Nebula looked up at them. Groot gave her the biggest, saddest eyes he was capable of. Yondu cocked a challenging eyebrow.

“This whole thing was your idea,” Quill pointed out.

“We might still fail,” Nebula said.

Gamora risked a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed gently when the hand wasn’t immediately cut off. “But we fail together, if we do.”

Nebula hummed. They all continued to stare at her. “What?” She said.

“The standing’s really important,” Rocket said. “We all gotta look like jackasses. S’like hazing.”

“It’s nothing like hazing.”

“It’s a little like hazing.”

While Peter and Rocket devolved into bickering, Nebula climbing to her feet went almost unnoticed.

* * *

 


End file.
